So they hung aloof, and let her alone, and by and by scarcely nodded as they passed her but said to Jeannot,—
"You were spared a bad thing, lad: the child was that grand painter's light-o'-love, that is plain to see. The mischief all comes of the stuff old Antoine filled her head with—a stray little by-blow of chickweed that he cockered up like a rare carnation. Oh! do not fly in a rage, Jeannot; the child is no good, and would have made an honest man rue. Take heart of grace, and praise the saints, and marry Katto's Lisa."
But Jeannot would never listen to the slanderers, and would never look at Lisa, even though the door of the little hut was always closed against him; and whenever he met Bébée on the highway she never seemed to see him more than she saw the snow that her sabots were treading.
One night in the midwinter-time old Annémie died.
Bébée found her in the twilight with her head against the garret window, and her left side all shrivelled and useless. She had a little sense left, and a few fleeting breaths to draw.
"Look for the brig," she muttered. "You will not see the flag at the masthead for the fog to-night; but his socks are dry and his pipe is ready. Keep looking—keep looking—she will be in port to-night."
But her dead sailor never came into port; she went to him. The poor, weakened, faithful old body of her was laid in the graveyard of the poor, and the ships came and went under the empty garret window, and Bébée was all alone.
She had no more anything to work for, or any bond with the lives of others. She could live on the roots of her garden and the sale of her hens' eggs, and she could change the turnips and carrots that grew in a little strip of her ground for the quantity of bread that she needed.
So she gave herself up to the books, and drew herself more and more within from the outer world. She did not know that the neighbors thought very evil of her; she had only one idea in her mind—to be more worthy of him against he should return.
The winter passed away somehow, she did not know how.